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New Delhi, June 15: Your Permanent Account Number (PAN) card will become invalid if it is not liked with Aadhaar card. Yes, you read it right! As the Income Tax Return filing season is on, it becomes mandatory for taxpayers to link both their identity proofs- the Aadhaar Card and the PAN card. It has to be noted that even if your income is below the taxable limit and even if you don’t fall in the category for filing income tax returns, it is compulsory to link your PAN with Aadhaar. If not done, your PAN is liable of becoming invalid. This means individuals whose income is below exemption limit but they possess both PAN and Aadhaar are required to link both by a date to be notified as per section 139AA. If such individuals do not link the two by the date to be notified, their PAN card will become invalid.
Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act says that every person who has been allotted PAN as on July 1, 2017 and who is eligible to obtain Aadhaar Number shall intimate the same to the tax authorities before a date to be notified by the government. On failure to do so, the PAN of those persons shall stand to be invalid and provisions of this Act shall apply as if the person does not hold a PAN. An individual can avail a slew of benefits if the Aadhaar-PAN linking is done. The Income Tax Department till now has linked over 1.16 crore Aadhaar numbers with its PAN database.
The Aadhaar card is issued by the UIDAI to all the resident of India while PAN is a ten-digit alphanumeric number allotted in the by the I-T Department to a person, firm or entity. Starting July 1, 2017, every person eligible to obtain Aadhaar must quote their Aadhaar number for the filing of income tax returns as well as for applications for PAN. The government earlier this week made it clear that the linking of the Aadhaar and the Permanent Account Number (PAN) will be a ‘must’ for filing Income Tax Returns (ITRs) and obtaining PAN from July 1.
The recent order by Supreme Court provides interim relief to those who may have PAN but do not have an Aadhaar and have not applied for one as yet from having to compulsorily link the two. It does not provide any relief to those who already have both PAN and Aadhaar.
An individual can e-Verify the IT returns using Aadhaar and by linking the two cards as he/she will no longer have to submit the Income Tax acknowledgement to the IT department. Another key feature of linking both the identity documents is that both are unique identification cards that serve as proof of identity that are necessary for registration and verification purposes.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), policy-making body for the I-T department said everyone who has been allotted PAN as on the 1st day of July, 2017, and who has Aadhaar number or is eligible to obtain Aadhaar number, shall intimate his Aadhaar number to income tax authorities for the purpose of linking PAN with Aadhaar.
The government has made it mandatory for taxpayers to quote Aadhaar or enrolment ID of Aadhaar application form for filing of income tax returns (ITR) under the Finance Act 2017. The Aadhaar has been made mandatory for applying for PAN with effect from July 1, 2017. If you don’t file income tax return but possess both PAN and Aadhaar then linking the two is compulsory otherwise your PAN will be liable to become invalid from a date to be notified by the government, as per section 139AA of the Act.
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